1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present application generally relate to voltage regulation. In particular, embodiments may relate to sensorless adaptive voltage positioning techniques for voltage regulators.
2. Discussion
Voltage regulators can be used to maintain a desired voltage level in a wide variety of electronic applications. In one approach, a voltage regulator may employ an adaptive voltage positioning loop, which might sense load current, convert the sensed current to a digital value, adjust an internal reference voltage based on the digital value, compare the adjusted internal reference voltage to the output voltage of a voltage converter, and generate an error signal based on the comparison, where feedback control loop may use the error signal to control the voltage converter. While such an approach may be suitable in certain circumstances, a number of challenges remain. For example, the use of an additional analog to digital converter (ADC) to convert the sensed load current to a digital value may increase the cost, power consumption and area requirements of the system. Moreover, sensing load current can increase the settling time of the regulator, which may have a negative impact on performance.